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Summit on Health Reform: Waking the dead?

Next Thursday, Feb. 25, President Barack Obama will convene a half-day summit on health reform.
It was originally billed as a bi-partisan get-together, but after the White House said the Pelosi and Reid bills will be the topic of discussion, some are urging Republicans to boycott the meeting.

Will the day represent the last dying breath for the mandatory health reform bills that have passed both houses of Congress, or will it give them new momentum?

The political wheels are grinding hard on both the left and the right.

The left wants Reid to play political hardball, using the budget reconciliation process, which requires just a 51-vote majority to pass bills, and making sure a public health insurance option is put to a vote.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee says 10 U.S. Senators and 119 House members have signed onto pro-public-option letters demanding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finish the job on health reform.

The Florida House members who have signed a similar letter include:
Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville,
Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando
Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar.

As of Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-FL, and House members Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton and Debbie Wasserman Shultz, D-Weston, had not endorsed the letters.

Nelson’s spokesmen sent this statement, explaining the Senator’s stance:

Sen. Bill Nelson

“Sen. Nelson favors the Senate version of the health care legislation. Though he knows it isn’t perfect, he’d hoped the House would adopt it. That way we’d have a law to prevent insurers from dropping the sick and stop them from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.
We’d also have a bill that would reduce the deficit.
But now that the President has called for a meeting of the leadership in both parties in Congress, let’s give it a chance and see what results.”

Excerpts of the Senate letter follow:

“There are four fundamental reasons why we support this approach – its potential for billions of dollars in cost savings; the growing need to increase competition and lower costs for the consumer; the history of using reconciliation for significant pieces of health care legislation; and the continued public support for a public option.”

The House letter says:

“Support for health care legislation started to fall as popular provisions like the public option were stripped out and affordability standards were watered down.”

“The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the public option will save taxpayers anywhere from $25 billion to $110 billion and will save billions more when private insurers compete to bring down premium costs. The stronger the public option, the more money it saves.”